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The hundred acre wood was a very lively  place that morning because Pooh, Eeyore and the Wise Old Owl (who had all been born on the same day) , were retiring.

They met in the Owl’s tree-house to see how they had fared in their retirement planning.

Eeyore was the first to tell his tale..

My tail is long and scraggly

he started.. after being put right by his friends he started again,

my tale is a tale of woe. I invested in all kinds of things when I was a little donkey none of which I understood but I was told that as long as I kept hold of them for long enough, they would be worth much money when I grew old. For many years I could see they were becoming more valuable but for the last ten years they have become less valuable and last week I was told that they were becoming less valuable by the day.

Pooh was next, he looked equally miserable.

 I appointed Tigger my financial adviser. Unlike Eeyore I actively traded my portfolio and did what Tigger told me. Unfortunately, though Tigger is very enthusiastic, he always seemed to be recommending the things that had just done well just as they started to do badly. I would like to say that I had Eeyore’s problem last week but I can’t – I didn’t have any money to lose because it had all been lost on inappropriate investments.

The Wise Old Owl sighed paternalistically.

“Don’t worry my friends” there will always be a bed for you in retirement in my tree-house”

he chortled.

You both have done very little that millions of humans haven’t done as well. Eeyore, you went to sleep on your investments. Your problem wasn’t in how you invested but that you forgot to move your money into stable investments in the last ten years. If you’d listened to me you would have set up a lifestyle plan which would have done this for you.

As for you Pooh, what possessed you to think you could do better than the plan given to you by your author all those years ago?  Trusting  Tigger was a grave error and you have paid dearly for self-investment. The lesson for bears of little brain is to trust in the default investment strategy which I recommended to you and Eeyore and which was set out by Mr Milne.

You will remember that the author told us when we started that we would have to pay attention to our retirement planning when we got close to retirement but that we should stop meddling with our investments when we were young. I have followed this advice and now have an unmortaged tree-house, substantial liquid assets and an income stream for life that meet my needs and allows me to look after you.

Pooh and Eeyore listened to the Wise Old Owl with a mixture of admiration and shame. How could they have been so stupid, ignoring the advice they had been given and either through apathy or from being easily lead, done so badly?

“Still”

 they thought –

it’s not that bad – we’re only in a children’s story and there are lots of people who have made our mistakes who live in the real world beyond the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood.

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